This photo started out as the assignment that I gave my advanced photography class.... I try to do these assignments with them. I waited until the day before class to complete this one and found myself at my studio without a subject to photograph. The assignment was just to turn off all the lights and use the natural light coming from a window to make an exposure. Its a great way to see how the light hits your subject, how and where shadows form, to show depth and to use this light to your greatest advantage. Since I had no subject, I decided to set the self timer and be my own subject. 

During editing I was reminded of this verse in John. I was also reminded of all the darkness that it feels like me and my kids are being dragged through right now and how we didn't ask for any of it... how we feel almost homeless or at the very least, on a good day, like we don't really know where to call home. I was reminded of the people who have abandoned me or just left this world and the void that created in my life, and really... how much I would love to tell everyone my real story, the truth about all of it.

But I don't say a word, except to a handful of people that I trust, I say nothing about what we are going through. The reason I don't is because we ALL go through struggles and mine are not greater or deeper than yours... and I want to be an example of or show the LIGHT that the darkness has not overcome. 

And now I will reroute from this turning into a sympathy seeking post... because that is not what it is.

... Because...

through every single thing that has happened in my life, the good (which there has been more than my fair share of) and the bad (some of which I actually did bring into my own life), this light was always with me... a source of happiness, direction, love and safety. And as this light hits me, it shows where my shadows are, it shows my depth and it shows my greatest potential!

John 1:4&5

In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. This light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.